Stephen Hui/Seven Oaks

With British Columbia’s offshore oil debate heating up, world-renowned biologist and environmentalist David Suzuki and a panel of researchers addressed an audience of 1,000 in Vancouver’s Vogue Theatre on February 24. Jim Fulton, executive director of the David Suzuki Foundation, told the meeting that although three moratoria -- federal, provincial, and First Nations -- protect the coast from oil and gas development, B.C.’s ban was “all but lifted,” and that the federal government’s was under review.

Presumably, most attendees came to hear what Suzuki had to say on the topic. But those hoping to hear the host of The Nature of Things make substantive arguments against offshore oil development would have been sorely disappointed. Suzuki clearly left the substance of the debate to his fellow panellists -- perhaps missing an opportunity to make a strong political statement -- delivering instead a speech filled with sweeping rhetoric about his espoused environmental worldview, lifestyle choices, and vision for the future. The researchers, however, didn’t really present any information that would have surprised the audience attending the event. Each focused on particular biological, economic, or legal issues related to oil exploration or exploitation.

Linda Weilgart, a marine mammal research associate and biology professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, argued that seismic testing would have a detrimental impact on whales. Seismic testing is the primary method used to find marine oil and gas reserves. The increase in marine traffic that oil development would bring could threaten endangered whale species in the Queen Charlotte Basin through collisions and noise as well, Weilgart said.

Whales rely on sound to communicate, detect predators and prey, and navigate. High intensity sound pulses, Weilgart said, can disrupt the behaviour of whales and even kill them. Seismic surveys have also been shown to cause extensive damage to fish ears and to induce lower fish catches. The marine mammal researcher asserted that a federal panel that looked into oil and gas development ignored the lethal impacts of seismic testing in its report.

Weilgart also pointed out that there are no studies of the long-term effects of seismic testing on whales. The best way to reduce the risk to marine life posed by seismic testing is to avoid conducting such surveys in rich environments, the biologist concluded. “The science will not be able to tell us what the exact impacts on these whales might be for decades to come, probably,” Weilgart said. “So, in the meantime, we have to behave in a precautionary manner. This would be the only responsible scientific course of action.”

Next, Dale Marshall, a researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said that offshore oil development would only provide modest socio-economic benefits to the province. His presentation drew numerous comparisons to the Hibernia project off the coast of Newfoundland, which has received huge government subsidies, but has had only a minor economic impact on the province.

Marshall said communities looking to offshore oil to create jobs would be disappointed. Out-of-town contractors would carry out most of the exploratory efforts with their own crews. Rig construction, the most labour-intensive part of the development process, would likely occur somewhere with cheap labour, government subsidies, and the required expertise. In addition, the North American Free Trade Agreement prohibits the provincial government from requiring companies to hire local workers. “It can’t do that,” Marshall said to astonished cries, “unless the B.C. government pays the oil and gas companies for that privilege.”

According to Marshall, two questions must be asked of the provincial government: “Will the B.C. government ensure that these rigs are built here?” and “Is the B.C. government willing to pay these oil and gas companies to ensure that British Columbians are hired in other phases of development?”

“Unless the answer is, ‘Yes, for sure,’ to both of these questions,” Marshall said, “the odds that we’ll have jobs and economic development from offshore oil is a pipe dream.” The researcher then directed his attention to promoting renewable sources of energy, such as wind power. He said the province was missing many job opportunities by exporting raw logs rather than processing them in B.C. mills. “There’s a real environmental risk from offshore oil that we’ve all heard about,” Marshall said. “The other risk is that we forgo all these other opportunities because governments and communities are too focused on this one pipe dream.”

Karen Campbell from West Coast Environmental Law told the audience that Canadian laws wouldn’t protect B.C.’s coast if the moratoria were lifted. She maintains that environmental assessments cannot be relied on to stop unsound projects. That’s because, according to Campbell, they rely on the results of industry studies and only examine details in a given plan. “The moratoria will protect us. It’s protected us for over 30 years, and it’s working,” the lawyer concluded. “People travel from around the world to come and experience this coast, and I’m not sure we’d want to trade that.”

Finally, David Suzuki, the last speaker, was introduced as “one of British Columbia’s and Canada’s favourite secret weapons.” But, in his speech, the famed geneticist didn’t say anything worthy of such an introduction, though the nature-loving crowd seemed to eat up his every word. Indeed, Suzuki, who said he was speaking more as a parent than as a scientist or broadcaster, barely touched on the issue of offshore oil at all.

“I have more of everything, including money, than I need for the rest of my life. I’m in the last years of my life. I don’t need anymore. And I’ve certainly received far more than my share of recognition and accolades -- more than I ever wanted or dreamed of,” said Suzuki, 68. “So, I have nothing on the table right now. I have no hidden agenda. My major concern in the last years of my life is a legacy that we’re leaving to our children and grandchildren.”

Suzuki went on to deride consumption, rail against climate change, and warn of mass extinctions. The environmentalist said the media is partly to blame for society’s seeming inability to react to warnings of an impending ecological crisis. “I’m just astounded at the obsession with a two-second peek at Janet Jackson’s right breast. For a whole week, it dominated the media,” Suzuki said. “And no wonder, then, that we don’t really deal in society with the serious things that afflict us.”

Then, the environmentalist expressed disbelief at seeing sport-utility vehicles drop off people with respiratory ailments at a Toronto hospital during a smog alert. “These are people who love their parents, and love their children -- who would do anything, almost anything, to protect them and to maintain their health -- but would never see that driving a huge vehicle like that is contributing to the very problem that they’re now trying to deal with at the emergency ward,” Suzuki said.

But the environmentalist offered no solutions. He went on and on about the relationship of forest fires and water shortages to climate change instead of seriously criticising the governments’ moves to open the coast to oil development. Suzuki told the meeting “it just doesn’t make any sense” to pursue offshore oil in the context of global warming. His speech was littered with such vacuous proclamations and appeals to common sense. Not surprisingly, the question period that followed was even less useful. Perhaps Janet Jackson isn’t the only celebrity distracting the public’s attention from the pressing issues at hand.

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